In the spring of 2011, I walked the Camino de Santiago with my daughter Francesca and my daughter-in-law Valerie. Pilgrimages to Santiago have not ceased since medieval times, when St. James’s remains were allegedly discovered in Galicia. Some 260 trails, starting as far away as Russia and Poland, wind their ways through Europe, all ending at the impressive Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. We traveled 800 kilometers on foot in forty days on the best-known and most popular route, the Camino Francés, starting at the foot of the Pyrenees in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, and ending in the city of Santiago de Compostela. Our journey was a spiritual pilgrimage dedicated to the mother of my children, who had been taken away from us way too early in life. It was the second big journey I had completed in six months. The first, my journey as a professional chef, had lasted almost half a century. Business and work had always been the priorities. That journey had ended late in 2010. This second journey, my pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, brought back vivid memories of my life as a young chef in Switzerland. Never before had I had that much time to reflect on my life. It also brought back memories of many of the dishes I had prepared during those years. Somehow the food and the memories were all intertwined, which is not surprising, since my passion for great food has shaped my professional life. This book is a record of both of those journeys. It is the story of how I developed as a chef and as a person. It is, in a sense, a photo album of my life, except that the snapshots are the dishes I prepared and the memories they evoke. At the end of the book are some of those “snapshots.” I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I did. As Francesca, Valerie, and I left the city of Santiago in northwestern Spain by train and rolled over the tracks toward the Madrid Chamartín railway station on our journey home, I thought back on my recent experiences. The stress of traveling 800 kilometers on foot, a short illness, and a dangerous fall in the steep hills above Molinaseca were all behind me now. The three of us enjoyed the comfort of the reclining seats as we looked out the window at the lush Spanish countryside. I began to think about the thoughts and memories that had flooded over me during my pilgrimage. My mind drifted back into the past, half a century ago, to the time when I started my culinary career as a 16-year-old kid in an old hotel in Engelberg, Switzerland. I also was thinking of my escape over the mountains to nowhere, a journey that frightened my employer, my co-workers, and all of my family. I thought of the outstanding chefs and mentors I have had the opportunity to learn from and reminisced about the harsh conditions and long hours we had to endure. I thought of the many friends and colleagues I had worked with through summer and winter seasons in luxury resort kitchens in Europe. These were good times, despite the fact that we were screamed at every day and worked months without a day off. I thought about Henry Jolidon, our instructor at culinary school in Lake Zug in Switzerland, and the cognac-infused cigars he savored and about listening to the many fascinating stories he told as we sat around a fireplace during freezing November nights. I was thinking of my mentor, Chef Rüegsegger, who had entrusted me with handling special private dinners for Sophia Loren and numerous other celebrities at the Bürgenstock golf club. I remembered the days in Davos during the World Figure Skating Championships in January of 1966, when a physician visited our kitchens when we were all near exhaustion to give us booster shots to keep us going for another day. My mind drifted back even farther, to when I still lived at home. I thought of my father, who had so much patience with me when I was a young and rebellious teenager. I had no interest working for my father’s small iron construction and locksmith business. But he was always there for me and supported me. I had no clue about what I wanted to do after I was thrown out of prep school at the Institute Sainte-Marie in Martigny. I must have been a bit too much to handle for the Catholic monks, too rebellious. I was much more focused on playing with the soccer team than on religious teachings. The first high-rise buildings of Madrid brought me back to the present. One more night in a suburban apartment hotel near Madrid-Barajas Airport, and then the next day we would be home in Texas. One of my journeys would come to an end. Or was it really a beginning? Perhaps walking the Camino has become a new passion for me.
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